Mobile communications devices such as cell phones increasingly include advanced data processing and communications capabilities. Far from being simple voice communications tools, modem mobile devices may include many different capabilities, such as email, text messaging, Web browsing, digital photography, sound recording/playback, location awareness, etc. As such, these devices are gaining ever-wider acceptance and are become increasingly valuable to end-users.
In order to increase the bandwidth available to mobile device users, mobile network providers and mobile device manufacturers are transitioning to third-generation (3G) technologies. The designation 3G refers to a collection of standards and technologies that can be used in the near future to enhance performance and increase data speed on cell phone networks. In particular, 3G is an International Telecommunication Union (ITU) specification for the third generation of mobile communications technology. A 3G cell phone would, in theory, be compatible with the 3G languages or standards which support enhanced data speeds.
Besides communicating over provider networks, 3G devices may also be used to communicate locally with other consumer electronics devices in a user's home or workplace. For example, a standard known as Universal Plug and Play™ (UPnP) provides a way for disparate processing devices to exchange data via a home network. The UPnP specification includes standards for service discovery, and is mainly targeted for proximity or ad hoc networks. Various contributors publish UPnP device and service descriptions, thus creating a way to easily connect devices and simplifying the implementation of networks. It is the goal of UPnP to enable home electronics to seamlessly interact, thus furthering the usefulness of such devices. Because a 3G communications device can also process data, it is possible for such devices to communicate via UPnP networks.
Besides allowing locally connected to devices to intercommunicate, the UPnP standard provides a way for the locally devices to seamlessly access external networks such as the Internet using UPnP. Generally, a UPnP Internet Gateway Device (IGD) resides on the edge of the UPnP network and provides connectivity to a Wide Area Network (WAN) and/or the Internet. An IGD may be implemented as a standalone device or included in another UPnP device (e.g., a personal computer). Besides allowing local UPnP devices to access the Internet, the IGD may also be configured to allow the user to access devices on the UPnP network via the Internet when the user is away from the local network. Such access is commonly referred to as “remote access.”
When the user is away from the network, remote access will often be established using a mobile device. Generally, a mobile device may be any small computing and communications device such as a cell phone, Personal Digital Assistant, etc., that runs on batteries and communicates wirelessly. These devices can be conveniently carried with users, and advances in mobile computing technologies have allowed mobile device to increasingly include more features, greater storage capacity, and greater processing power. Even so, establishing remote access connections may be expensive for mobile devices. For example such devices may keep the communications subsystem on during the connection, which shortens battery life and therefore degrades the user experience. Further, some access networks that the user may encounter charge based on bandwidth usage, and a user may not want to incur these costs (or at least limit the costs) for remotely monitoring a home network.
Quite often it happens that the user is involved in situations where the remote access connections are not needed. For example, the user might be in a meeting and he doesn't need to interact with his home devices. Such home devices may include a media player where the user stores music for remote playback. In that event, the user might choose to end the remote access connection to save battery lifetime. When the meeting is over he wants to interact with his media player, but the remote access connection is not available and he must activate it before the service is available. Having to manually perform the task of activating and deactivating the remote access connection is not very user friendly and might lead to situations where the user will not use the feature at all. Therefore, a way of seamlessly and automatically affecting remote access to a UPnP network based on a user's present situation is desirable.